


(I'll Be Loving You) Always

by shouldbeover



Series: The Blue Moon Set [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys In Love, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Romance, Smut, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 16:43:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13663086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shouldbeover/pseuds/shouldbeover
Summary: In the present day, Bucky remembers that he and Steve were once lovers.





	(I'll Be Loving You) Always

**Author's Note:**

> Cheese Louise, could I take any longer to finish something that I had planned out from the beginning? Hope you like it.
> 
> "Always" - Irving Berlin, 1926 as a wedding gift to his wife, full lyrics at the end.

“We used to touch!” Bucky said suddenly, “We used to touch…” The first almost hostile, the second slightly confused, as if questioning the memory.

They’d been sitting in silence reading, Steve curled up in the armchair, Bucky half sprawled on the couch, until Bucky abruptly sat up, dropping his book on the floor.

Steve put his tablet down on the end table cautiously. “We touch now, Bucky.”

Bucky jumped up and started pacing. “No, no, we used to _touch_. We used to…be lovers.” He whispered the last word, as if he was still afraid that someone would hear.

He suddenly whirled around to point an accusing finger at Steve. “We were! We were, until you let me go.”

Steve winced, “Bucky, I tried so hard to catch you. I should have, I should have, and then—“

Bucky waved his arms, “No, no, before that. You let me go for a dame!  The dame with blood on her mouth.”

For a moment, Steve was completely confused, “The woman with blood—PEGGY? You think I let you go for Peggy?”

“Yes, her. You let me go.”

Steve had tried so hard for so long. Through Bucky’s recovery after Wakanda, after the move to the Tower, after their move to Brooklyn. To always be walking on eggshells around Bucky, never pushing, always encouraging Bucky’s recovering memory, ignoring his own pain to protect Bucky, and now, like any one worn thin might, he snapped. A year, more than a year, of swallowing his sorrow and resentments, to have Bucky accusing him of this was too much. In his head he’d replayed that last real, agonizing conversation they’d had when Bucky had broken his heart, a million times since he’d come out of the ice, and even more when he’d gotten Bucky back, and smothered it down every time.

“I let YOU go? You let ME go. You told me, told me you didn’t love me, didn’t like how I looked any more, that none of it was real, none of what we’d shared was real, and…that my ma, my own beloved mother, knew and hated that I was queer for you---“

Bucky collapsed to the floor so fast that were he an ordinary human he’d have broken his tailbone. He stared at the carpet, eyes glazed, “I…let _you_ go?”

Remorse set in instantly. “Oh, God, Bucky. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I yelled. It’s ok. It’s ok that you don’t want me, don’t love me like that, I didn’t mean—“

“It was all a lie,” Bucky said quietly, voice flat.

“It’s ok, I understand. I was never the girl—“

Bucky looked up, eyes wet. “No! No, Stevie, what I said to you when…I hurt you so bad. It was all a lie. I loved you so much. I always loved you so much. I…I love you so much. Everything before that was true. The truest thing I ever had.”

Steve blinked, “Oh.”

They stared at one another.  

“Then why, whyd’ya say it, Buck. Hurt me so bad I wanted to die.”

Bucky drew patterns on the rug with his hand, “Because you didn’t understand. I wouldn’t have been able to make you understand. I was already a monster when you found me on that table. I couldn’t let you be hurt by the demon inside me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Bucky? I coulda helped. I’d have gotten you help. I’d have never dragged you back if I thought you were hurting.  You weren’t a monster, you aren’t a monster. Why did you have to break my heart?,” softer, “Why did you think you had to be afraid of me?”

Bucky smiled, “Had to follow you, didn’t I. Couldn’t let you go off and get shot with only that stupid tin shield, now could I?

“Oh, Buck…”

“You still don’t get it, Steve. You…” he scrubbed a hand through his hair.  “When you pulled me off that table, and you were…so…the hero, and we ran into Schmidt, I thought maybe, maybe that was me.  Maybe my skin would peel off and I’d become him, and I thought….I thought  it’d be better to make sure you didn’t want to be near me, break your heart, than let you ever see me like that. Ever hurt you like that. I didn’t know about any of it, the serum, Erskine, just that they’d hurt me, and if they’d made me into…” He looked away. “They did make me into…a monster, didn’t they…and I did almost kill you, several times. You never had the sense God gave a gnat when it came to protecting yourself. Still don’t.

“You and Peggy, you’da been good together. ‘Stead of you mooning after somebody who was already lost. ‘Stead of being queer with me. Your mom, she…she didn’t know, ‘bout us. Leastwise she never said it to me, but she did ask me find you a girl who’d love you like you deserved to be loved. I knew I was passing you into good hands.”

Steve sat down heavily in his chair, hands clasped between his legs. “Oh,” he repeated. Peggy…yeah…but I didn’t put the Valkyrie into the ocean because of Peggy.  I never knew what to do with Peggy.  She had to kiss me.”

Bucky sighed and rubbed his face. “Oh, Steve.  You…didn’t…”

“Yeah, yeah, I did.”

Bucky smiled up at him sadly. “I said you didn’t have the sense of a gnat.”

“Yeah, maybe not,” Steve agreed, and grinned sadly back.  “Always needed my best guy to watch my six.  Lost him and…kind of lost my rudder.

“So, what now?”

“I…I don’t know,” Steve whispered.

“Ok,” Bucky replied.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.  But I don’t know…I don’t know if I can…”

Steve looked down at his hands again and sighed.  It was as if he was trying to make himself smaller somehow.  To return to the body he’d once had. “I understand. Sometimes, sometimes I don’t feel right in this body either. I can understand that it’s not what you fell in love with, and—“

Bucky crawled across the carpet to grab Steve’s knees and look up at him. “Shut up, Steve.”

“But--” Steve said, confused.

“No, Steve,” Bucky ran his hands along the sides of Steve’s thighs tenderly but chastely. “This body…this body is a masterpiece. You should never be ashamed of it. Never. Not for me or anyone else. And what you’ve done, what you’ve done as Captain America...you are a hero.”

Steve blushed and turned his head away. “Jus’ the serum. Gave me this body.”

“NO! Erskine…I didn’t know him, but from what I heard from Peggy…he chose you. If it was just a matter of strength…it could have been any idiot. But Peggy said, Peggy said he wanted a good man. Serum didn’t make you good. Didn’t make you brave, or smart, or a great strategist, or a great leader. If you were just a lunkhead with muscles the guys, Dum Dum and Morita, Gabe, Falsworth, never would have followed you.

“I mean, you are a lunkhead, but you’re a…good leader in spite of it.” He grinned, the old grin, crooked, cocky, and smug. And tender.

“But this body…yeah, it’s not the body I first made love to. Yeah, it was a shock first time I saw you, but, I think, I guess, I…I was envious. Envious that you got to have it, like I’d always been the strong one looking after you. Jealous that you belonged to the world now, and didn’t need me—“

“Buck—“

“No, let me finish. You didn’t need me, and I knew you shouldn’t need me because I didn’t know what I was, shouldn’t need me because you were better than I ever was, always were. Shh, let me keep talking before I get too scared. You know, I think this is the most talking I’ve done for a long time.”

“This mean I’m not going to get you to shutup? Just like old times.” Steve looked at Bucky from under his lashes with a smile.

“Well, there is one way…” Bucky sat back suddenly and looked out the window. Steve hungered for the tenderness of the touch even if he knew it didn’t mean what he wanted it to mean.

“You know,” Bucky went on, “I go the park, sit and watch people. And I see all the couples. Young couples, holdin’ hands. Ones with their children. And old couples, still holding hands. Not as old as us of course. But probably alive in the war. And you know they’ve changed. Their bodies have changed through the years. Some dame who was probably 36-24-36 when they married. Ten inches bigger all over at least now. Rounder, droopier probably. Him too, shoulders all sloped, pot gut. But…you know, you just know, that when he looks at her he still sees that young, beautiful girl he married. And she still sees him, broad-shouldered, maybe in his uniform.”

“Hat at a jaunty angle,” Steve whispered.

A smiled flickered across Bucky’s mouth and he looked back at Steve. “I’d be a pretty sad person if I didn’t still love you because your body changed. Because you’re still Steve. He resumed his previous position, hands on Steve’s thighs. “In here.” He poked Steve in the chest. “And here.” He ran his thumb over Steve’s eyebrow. “And those blue eyes, those eyes will always be Steve’s eyes, my Steve’s eyes. Blue and deep, smart and kind, funny and righteous. And these lips…” He touched Steve’s bottom lip with his forefinger. “Still the ones I first kissed. Still the ones I dreamt of when I went to war. Ones I still dream of now…”

Steve closed the distance between them. He kissed like drinking water in the desert. Desperate and needy, but careful, knowing too much would choke him.

Bucky kissed back the same, loving but tentative.

Steve started to move off of the chair to join Bucky on the floor but Bucky pulled away and pressed on Steve’s chest to hold him where he was.

“Steve, I…what I meant before, that I don’t know…I don’t know if I can be intimate with anyone. Not because of your body, maybe because of mine. Of how it’s changed, what it’s done. That okay?”

Steve slid off the floor anyway, but didn’t try to reinitiate the kiss. “Anything you want, anything you need, Buck, always ok, always was and always will be. Just to have you say it again.  Missed you so much, baby. You got no idea.”

Bucky smiled, “Think I do.” He leaned in for a small, innocent kiss, then rested his head against Steve’s shoulder. Steve leaned back against the chair and pulled Bucky to him. They sat like that for a long time. Steve pressed his lips into Bucky’s unwashed hair, enjoying the smell of oil and the last remnants of shampoo. Occasionally Bucky would turn his face into Steve’s chest and sigh softly, readjusting and making himself more comfortable.

There were times when Steve thought that Bucky might have fallen asleep, until Bucky would whisper, “You still smell the same.”

“If you say like Apple Pie or freedom…”

“Nah, like the dirt you been pushed down into. I remember skinned knees and bloody noses. Like I could smell when you were getting your righteous fury on—like the smell of an angry cat.”

“Uh, you saying I smell like a cat?”

“No, just you. Like I knew you were somewhere getting punched, or later, doin’ the punchin’ and have to come find you.”

Or, “Did you kiss me first, or did I kiss you?”

“Not sure. Think it was kind of the same time.”

“We went up to the roof.”

“Yeah, middle of the night, like idiots.”

“That was good, hunh?”

“That was the best. Until we moved in together.”

Softer still, “And after? I really never touched you after?”

“No. You and I…we acted like friends, but you, well I, we never let ourselves be alone together.”

“That was hard.”

“Yeah, that was hard.”

“You were my best friend.”

“You are my best friend.”

At last as the sun was casting long shadows across the floor, Bucky said, “You hungry? I’m hungry.”

“Okay.”

They ate cold sandwiches standing at the kitchen counter. They spoke little, but touched often. Fingers brushing and briefly interlocking as they reached for silverware, a gentle caress across the shoulders as Steve pulled beers out of the fridge.

“It comes together sometimes,” Bucky said.

“What does?” asked Steve, but he already knew.

“The memories. But not quite. Like I remembered liking green ice cream, remember?”

“Yeah, and I got you mint-chocolate chip.”

“But that wasn’t it. It was pistachio in 1941.  This is like that. I remember…loving you, and then hurtful words. I thought you said them. But it was me.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m here.”

They spent the rest of the night as they often did, with popcorn and Coca-Cola in front of the television, watching old movies.  But it was different tonight, and for the first time, perhaps since the war, Steve felt hopeful. Happy even. His friend was back, even if his lover wasn’t.

Bucky yawned and stretched after a few hours, ready for bed. He too felt lighter. He loved Steve and Steve loved him. It was such a simple thing. The re-ordering of the memories in his head that made all the difference. It was something to build on.

They stood at their separate bedroom doors like so many nights.

“Well, goodnight then.”

“Steve…”

“Yeah?”

“I love you, you know. I really love you.”

“Oh, Buck. I love you too.”

“Sorry it’s taken me so long to say it. To say it again.”

“S’allright now.”

Bucky leaned up a little to brush against Steve’s lips and went into his bedroom.  A heartbeat later Steve went into his. As he changed into his pajamas he heard Bucky’s shower.

He had just settled on his bed to continue reading his abandoned book when there was a knock at the door.

“Bucky?” he called.

Bucky stood in Steve’s bedroom door clutching his pillow. His hair was wet from the shower and he was dressed in a well-worn set of flannel pajamas.

Steve put down his book again.

“Bucky?”

“Can I…sleep with you?”

“Of course. Just sleep?”

“Think so.”

“Ok.”

If you asked Steve or Bucky what they loved most about the 21st century (besides finding one another) they might say the Internet, or abundant food in the grocery store, or even air conditioning, but the truth was that it was beds and pillows, showers and baths. Their mattresses in the old days had all been dragged off of the sidewalk, already beaten up and broken down. Barely 4 inches thick and stuffed with hard rolls of cotton. Now you could have hard or soft, warming or cooling, down-topped or memory foam with pillows to match. Steve had about eight pillows on his bed at any one time. To sleep, to prop himself up to read, to put his feet on. It made him feel like a king. But Bucky brought his own pillow, a squishy synthetic down version, cleared a space and put it down.

Before they fell asleep, Bucky linked his hand with Steve’s.

When Steve woke he was half smothered in his own pile of pillows. Several had fallen to the floor. Bucky was wedged behind him, right arm draped over his hip as if they were back on the single they had shared for so long.

Steve was also hard as a rock and desperate to get away from the heat, and sleepy-smell of Bucky’s body. Even the metal arm was easy to forget in the rush of memory from so many mornings a life-time before.

He was just trying to slide away, to replace his body with pillows so that Bucky wouldn’t wake, when Bucky pulled him closer.  “Mornin’, Steve.”

Steve sank back into Bucky’s embrace. “Mornin’, Buck.”

“We have time for this before?”

“Sometimes. Mostly you had to go out to work, but Saturdays, Sundays. And didn’t your Ma get on us about never getting to church.”

Bucky started to shake with laughter. “’Member you!  I remember you, some morning. Complaining that you couldn’t go kneel in church with my spunk sliding down your leg like a whore.”

“Oh, my God. You said, you said I probably wouldn’t be the only person there sufferin’ from that.”

“And then you said!  That was ladies who wanted a baby, like none of the straight couples woudda had a little before church just for fun.”

They laughed some more, silly and easy, rolling onto their backs and staring at the ceiling.

“You wanna?” Bucky said slyly, rolling over to face Steve.

“Wanna what?” Steve turned on his side as well so they were face to face.

“Fool around.”

“Buck…” Steve wanted. He wanted so much. But this new thing was so fragile, he wasn’t sure he could take it if Bucky found his new body revolting.

“Bucky, just…we can take it slow.”

“I know,” Bucky smiled, more seriously, but there was still a twinkle in his eye.

He sat up and started to undo his pajama top, never breaking eye contact. He pulled off the right sleeve and then held the left to his body protectively.

Steve got up on his knees, undid his own pajama top and let it fall to the floor. There was no hiding his body, all two hundred plus pounds of muscle. He let Bucky’s gaze travel over him.

“It’s a good body,” Bucky said.

“It does what it was designed to do.” Inside he thought, but it’s not what you want.

Bucky lowered his eyes and let the rest of his pajama top fall away.

“Can I?” Steve whispered even as he reached out to touch Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky’s eyes flickered away to the door, but he didn’t move. “Yes.”

So Steve relearned Bucky’s body, touching the scars, the metal plates, then back up over to the unmarked shoulder, dipping down between Bucky’s pecs and back up to touch his cheek. “Still the most beautiful man I ever seen, Bucky. Never wanted anybody but you.”

Bucky whispered, “May I?”

Steve let Bucky touch him, willing himself to stay still, not lean into the touch that he’d hungered for for so long.

“You’re bigger,” Bucky said, matter-of-factly, as if that wasn’t the whole issue.

Steve’s hunched his shoulders. “Yeah.”

“But you’re still as pink as an Irish baby. And you still blush all the way down, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Steve? You were never my girl. You know that right?”

“Yeah,” Steve mumbled.

“Never wanted you to be. Always knew…knew if there was a heaven, you’d look like this. Like Gabriel ready to blow his horn. Don’t laugh!

“Loved when you were tiny. How you fit in my arms, tucked your head under mine, but this… It’s not…wrong. Jus’ different. I’m going to kiss you now.”

“Uh…okay.”

Bucky leaned forward, cupped Steve’s jaw in his hand and kissed him, long and slow without pulling them any closer together.  Then he moved his hand to Steve’s broad shoulder, curved around the bicep, down to touch Steve’s firm pectoral muscle.  Steve shivered.

“Still ticklish?”

“A little.”

Steve let himself be pulled down, as Bucky lay back against the sheets, let himself be nestled against Bucky’s bare chest. Let his face be kissed so tenderly, forehead, closed eyes, tip of the nose, back to the lips.

“Stevie, Stevie, my sweetest Stevie, still mine, after all I done,” Bucky was whispering. And then he was kissing along Steve’s throat, behind the ear, down into the clavicle and Steve couldn’t help himself. He let out a tiny whimper.

Bucky froze. Steve moved to pull away, but Bucky pulled him close, “No, no, baby, don’t go. Sounds you used to make? ‘Member ‘em all now.  Don’t miss the wheeze and the rattle. Don’t miss thinking I’d lose you before your time. No. Still my Stevie, still so good to me.  Beautiful.  God’s own angel still.”

“Bucky, please, don’t start what you can’t finish. I can’t…can’t bear it.”

Bucky pulled Steve’s hand to touch Bucky’s cock, heavy and hard inside his pajama pants. “Plannin’ on finishing this, baby. If you’re still with me?”

“Oh, God yes!”

Bucky flipped them over in a quick fluid motion that left Steve breathless. He wriggled down on the bed and tugged Steve’s pajama bottoms and briefs off at once and tossed them aside.

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“If I wanted you to be a tiny little girl, would I have loved sucking you down so much?”

Steve laughed out loud. Relief flooded him. After Bucky’s words in the woods he’d been so afraid that he really had been an easy source of sexual relief for Bucky, but he remembered too, all the nights, even nights when he didn’t have the energy or breath for sex, when Bucky would suck his cock until he could finish, no matter how long it took.

“Guess no---OH!”

Because Bucky suddenly did take Steve’s cock in his mouth almost all the way down in one go. It was as sloppy and uncoordinated as their first time, but Bucky’s whole focus seemed to be on Steve’s body.  He slid his hands along Steve’s strong thighs, ran his hands over Steve’s belly, and up his sides.

“Wait, wait!” Steve gasped, tugging on Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky pulled off, his full, beautiful lips were wet with saliva. He looked, to Steve, as if he’d shed years in a few hours. Not quite the Bucky of 1941, but closer than any time since Steve had first found him.

“Want to kiss you,” Steve said.

Bucky crawled back up Steve’s body, slotted their bodies together and kissed Steve, tenderly and slowly. “You okay, Baby?”

“Perfect? You?”

“Better than ever. Gonna move now. Wanna feel you come apart.”

It didn’t take long for either of them, Bucky wrapping his hand around both of them and stroking firm and fast until Steve threw his head back and cried out Bucky’s name. Bucky, always more quiet, gasped Stevie and came undone as well.

Bucky curled up against Steve’s side and rested his head against his shoulder. “Guess I got no problem with intimacy.”

Steve chuckled. “And I guess you’re ok with my body.”

“How could I not be, you’re every gay boy’s wet dream. I seen some stuff on the internet.”

“Yeah, but you’re not gay.”

“Well, I think what we just did proves that wrong.”

“Maybe it was just relief, after so long.”

Bucky poked Steve in the side and said, “Yeah, that was it. Better go find a five foot nothing, skinny blond, girl or boy, to make sure. Jeez, Steve, it’s you. It’s only ever been you.”

“Yeah, me too.”

They settled into one another. Bucky said, “You did let me go once, didn’t you? I’m not completely wrong. I remember you breaking my heart.”

“Yeah, but I thought I was saving our souls.”

“I thought I was saving you.”

“Touché. Guess we both figured out salvation means nothing if we’re not together.”

“Yeah, I guess we did.”

 

Coda – a few days later:

“Hey, Buck, I got something for you, uh, if you want, I mean…well, here.” Steve held out his hand. In his palm were two tin rings, a shield and a star.

Bucky gaped. “You, you kept them?”

“Always. With me when they pulled me outa the ice. Not sure what Fury and the others made of it, but it didn’t go to the museum. He gave ‘em to me a couple of years ago, no questions asked.”

Bucky looked up at Steve with tears in his eyes. “Oh, sweetheart, Stevie. I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t gotta say anything. I know.”

They smiled at one another, soppy and sad and happy at the same time.

Bucky took them out of Steve’s palm and twirled them around. “Pretty sure they ain’t gonna fit no more. Our hands,” he glanced down at the metal one, “ain’t the same size.  And I, I don’t remember which one was which.”

“I gave you the shield. You gave me the star. Kinda prophetic in a way.”

“You got the shield now. And I…I got the star.”

“Nah, let’s keep it the way it was.”

Bucky closed his hand over the rings, and shut his eyes. He felt like he should make a wish, but what would he wish for? For it to be 1936 again. For them to be who they once were, young and innocent and in love. No way to get those years back now.

Steve pulled his dog tags out from his shirt and worked the star ring onto the chain. Bucky did the same with the shield.

“You know,” Bucky said, sometime later, as they lay tangled together in bed, “we could get them remade now, to fit our fingers. In titanium or somethin’.”

“Do it properly this time?”

“Do what properly?”

“You know, with witnesses, certificates…”

Bucky propped himself up on his elbow. “You askin’ me to marry you, Steve Rogers?”

Steve grinned, “Guess so. So?”

“Anytime you want, Steven Grant Rogers.”

“Steven Barnes-Rogers.”

“Sounds good.”

In the end they had plain titanium bands made, but along the inside of each was an engraved star and shield, and the number 1936.

~FIN~

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be loving you, always.  
> With a love that's true, always.  
> When the things you've planned  
> Need a helping hand,  
> I will understand, always.  
> Always
> 
> Days may not be fair, always,  
> That's when I'll be there, always.  
> Not for just an hour,  
> Not for just a day,  
> Not for just a year,  
> But Always.
> 
> I'll be loving you, oh always  
> With a love that's true, always.  
> When the things you've planned  
> Need a helping hand,  
> I will understand, always.  
> Always.
> 
> Dreams will all come true,  
> growing old with you,  
> and time will fly,  
> caring each day more  
> than the day before,  
> till spring rolls by.  
> Then when the springtime has gone,  
> Then will my love linger on.
> 
> I'll be loving you, oh always  
> With a love that's true, always.  
> When the things you've planned  
> Need a helping hand,  
> I will understand Always.
> 
> Always.
> 
> Days may not be fair,always,  
> That's when I'll be there, always.  
> Not for just an hour,  
> Not for just a day,  
> Not for just a year,  
> But always.


End file.
